One Maricopa County, Arizona, landowner appears to have gamed the land-based voting rules of Salt River Project (SRP), the large Arizona electric utility, in a way that enabled him to almost single-handedly decide the outcome of an election for a seat on that utility’s board of governance in 2024.
Public records show that the landowner, Nicholas J. (Nick) Vanderwey, converted almost 240 acres of land from a limited liability corporation (LLC) to a trust, just in time to vote nearly all of the acres associated with those lands in the 2024 election. Acres owned by an LLC are not eligible for voting in SRP elections; acres held in trust are. After the election, Vanderwey sold the acres back to an LLC. Vanderwey’s votes in the election provided the vast majority of the votes for the winning candidate for one of SRP’s board seats, accounting for nearly the entire margin of victory.
The episode demonstrates how SRP’s peculiar land ownership-based voting system enables large landowners to have outsize influence over who is elected to the SRP Board and Council, which govern the utility and are responsible for setting electricity and water rates. The Board’s decisions about what energy and infrastructure investments to make, and how to structure rates for different types of customers, have implications for SRP’s two million customers.
After the 2024 election, Vanderwey sold the land in question to a company that plans to build a data center there, which will make it a large SRP customer with massive financial interests in the utility’s actions.
SRP’s unique voting scheme concentrates power in large landowners
SRP began as the Salt River Valley Water Users’ Association in 1903, when landowners pledged their land as collateral for a loan to build the Roosevelt Dam. After the dam was built and as the area developed, SRP began offering electric service via the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District, an agricultural improvement district and political subdivision of the state of Arizona. Because of the way SRP was organized, election of their governing Boards and Councils is based on landownership in 10 voting areas across their service territory, which corresponds to the original footprint of the Salt River Valley Water Users Association.
Terms of office for all officials are four years, but staggered, so half of the board and council membership are up for election at a time. The odd numbered voting areas (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13) were up for election in 2024; the even numbered voting areas (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14) are up for election in 2026. The President and Vice President also serve four year terms and are elected in the same cycle as the even numbered voting areas.
In order to vote in an SRP election, a person must own land in one of the 10 voting areas, though certain lands within the voting areas are ineligible to vote. The total amount that a land owner may vote equates to how many acres they own: one acre of land ownership is worth one vote; owning a home on a 0.25-acre plot is worth 0.25 votes. The only exception is for the four at-large Power District Board Directors, where each landowner has one vote regardless of total acreage. Land ownership must be established at least 100 days before an election, voters must be 18 years old, and to vote in the Power District election, the person must reside in and be registered to vote in Arizona. Individuals who rent, but do not own land in SRP’s territory, are unable to vote for the governance of the utility, even if they pay for electricity from SRP, essentially giving them no means of accountability over the monopoly that sets their prices.
SRP also allows individuals to vote their acres for lands that are held in trust, but only under certain conditions. According to a “Frequently Asked Questions” page on SRP’s web site, eligible lands that are held in trust may be voted if the trust was “formed primarily in furtherance of a person’s estate planning” to allow land ownership to pass to the person’s family members or a charity upon the owner’s death. In addition, a person voting on behalf of a trust must be appointed by the trustee or trustees to vote and be either “the person for whose estate planning the trust was formed” or a related beneficiary of the trust. Land that is owned by an LLC is ineligible to vote in SRP elections.
EPI reached out to Nick Vanderwey for comment, but did not receive a response.
The Vanderwey family own land across the SRP voting area and are involved in its governance
Nick Vanderwey currently serves as a SRP Council Member from Division 6 and is running for a Board seat for Division 6 in 2026. He and his family members (father, John, and brothers, Larry, John, and Michael) are farmers and landowners in the Phoenix area. His brother, Michael, is also running for a SRP Division 6 Council position in the 2026 election. A search for ‘Vanderwey’ as a principal name in the Arizona Corporation Commission Arizona Business Center (ABC, formerly eCorp) database finds dozens of LLCs associated with various members of the Vanderwey family and their businesses and holdings, including spouses of Nick and his brothers.
As elected officials on either the Board of Directors or Council, the Vanderweys can exert influence over the direction and policies of the utility. The role of the Board of Directors is to establish policies and guide the management of SRP. The Power District Board sets the price of power, approves capital projects and fuel contracts, and sets rates and other policies impacting customers. The role of the Council is to adopt by-laws that govern each body. According to SRP, the Power District Council also approves revenue bonds issued by the District.
Prior to the 2024 election, the Vanderwey family changed the ownership of land in Division 3 to trust land
In December 2023, Hermosa North, LLC, which is managed by the Vanderwey family, sold a number of parcels of land in Maricopa County to Trustees of the Hermosa North Trust (Maricopa County Recorder, recording no. 20230643382). The Hermosa North Trust is also controlled by the Vanderwey family, with Nick Vanderwey serving as trustee. The property in the transaction is located in SRP Division 3, which had an election for its Board and Council seats in 2024.
Ownership for the parcel was flipped from an LLC to a trust a few days ahead of the land ownership cutoff date, wherein SRP obtains an official list of landowners from Maricopa County to determine voting eligibility. A subsequent deed for these parcels was recorded in June 2024 (Maricopa County Recorder, recording no. 20240312109) with an owner TGV Investments LLC/HRNJ LLC/HRNL LLC/HRNM LLC/HRNN LLC, which are also entities managed by the Vanderwey family. The June 2024 deed reflects a total of 239.678 acres that were transfered from trust ownership back to LLC ownership.
In April 2024, the SRP Division 3 race was won by the incumbent, Mario Herrera, with 263.88 votes to Andrea Moreno’s 22.30 votes. 217.76 of the votes in the election were from Nick Vanderwey via the Hermosa North Trust LLC, according to SRP Corporate Secretary’s 2024 early voting records, which SRP provides upon request. Nick Vanderwey’s votes secured Herrera’s seat on the Board almost single-handedly.
EPI asked SRP about their awareness of this type of transaction and if it comports with SRP’s intent to allow trust lands to be voted if formed for estate planning purposes. SRP replied that it “does not involve itself in or advise how property owners hold title to their property.”
After securing Herrera’s seat, the Vanderwey’s profited from the sale of the property to a data center company owned by Blackstone
After the Vanderwey’s land in Division 3 was transferred back into a family controlled LLC, TGV Investments subsequently sold the property to QTS Realty Trust for the development of a data center. QTS, owned by New York-based investment giant Blackstone, acquired the property in July 2024 for $246.8 million. The Phoenix Business Journal also reported on the sale, stating that the Avondale City Council rezoned the approximately 240-acre site in May 2024. In August 2025, the Arizona Republic reported that the property is still under development by QTS Data Centers and Blackstone. This property remains in SRP’s service territory; Herrera will be able to weigh in on any future contracts with the data center developer. So will Nick Vanderwey himself, if he wins his election for the Division 6 Board seat.
